Gustavus Adolphus College

Gustavus Adolphus College is a private liberal arts college in St. Peter, Minnesota. It was founded in 1862 by Swedish Americans led by Eric Norelius and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Gustavus gets its name from Gustavus Adolphus, the King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632. Its residential campus includes a 125-acre arboretum. History Founding The predecessor to the college was founded in 1862 as a Lutheran parochial school in Red Wing by Eric Norelius. The school offered classes for grade-school children; collegiate courses were not offered until nearly a decade later, but the college uses the earlier date as the year it was founded. Originally named Minnesota Elementarskola (elementary school in Swedish), it moved the following year to East Union, an unincorporated town in Dahlgren Township. In 1865, on the 1,000th anniversary of the death of St. Ansgar, known as the "Apostle of the North", the institution was renamed and incorporated as St. Ansgar's Academy.